Ali Ataie – The Children of Abraham Judaism, Christianity, Islam
AI: Summary ©
The Bible's historical and biblical pillars have a significance to the people, including the holy grail and the holy Bible's use of the word "bringing light" to symbolize the holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy. The conflict between biblical tradition and Jewish law is discussed, with some people claiming the Bible is the actual source of biblical records and others believing it is a false scripture. The Weeping Valley and its foundation into a well are also discussed, along with the Weeping Valley and its foundation into a well. The acceptance of the universal carrier of the universal church and the after-f fog in the timing of prayer are emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
All praise belongs to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
the Lord of the worlds, the one and
only true God, the most compassionate, the merciful.
There's nothing like him whatsoever. Get easy all
hearing, and we all seeing, and peace and
blessings be upon our master, Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi
was said to them, the final messenger of
god, the seal of the prophets, the commander
of the righteous,
the leader of the messengers, and beloved of
the lord of the world.
Abraham, the quintessential
monotheist.
He was not an idol worshiper.
As you know, this Eid
is tied to the pilgrimage, the Hajj, and
our master Ibrahim, alaihis salaam. And Ibrahim, alaihis
salaam is revered as a great patriarch of
all 3 major religions, Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.
He's called the friend of God in the
Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran.
And yet there are significant differences between the
sacred historical narratives of the Bible and biblical
tradition
and those of the Quran and Muslim tradition.
So I thought that this morning, I would
highlight some of those similarities
as well as some key differences
and to maybe explore the significance of these
differences between our tradition
and the so called Judeo Christian tradition.
According to our sacred historical narrative, our master
Ibrahim, alayhis salam, traveled to the Arabian Peninsula
with his eldest son, Ismail, alayhis salam.
And both Walid and Walid, both father and
son built the walls of the Kaaba in
Mecca.
The the foundations of which were laid down
by our master Adam, alaihis salam, the first
human being.
This is sort of like the origin story
of our deen, so to speak. Allah says
in the Quran,
I swear by this city, meaning Mecca,
and you are a free man in this
city.
And by the father,
and what he has begotten.
Truly mankind is in constant struggle.
He
said that the waled here is Ibrahim, Alaihi
Salam,
and Mawaleh is Ismael Alaihi Salam and his
progeny.
That Allah
is taking an oath by Ibrahim and Ismael
Alaihi Salam.
These two great ancestors of the Arabs.
And, of course, this was something that was
known among the Arabs that they were descendants
of Ibrahim alayhi, Esa lam, through Ismail Alaihi
Salam. This is what gave this oath such
potency when the Quraysh first heard it, in
Mecca. In Al Bukhari, we're in Bukhari, we're
told that the place an icon of Ibrahim
and Ismail, Alaihi Mus Salam, inside the Kaaba.
And the prophet ordered
it to be removed at the conquest
so they knew their lineage. They were proud
of their lineage.
Now according to our narrative,
in more ancient times, Mecca was known as
Becca.
Imam al Zemmachshari, who was a master philologist,
he said that in some dialects of Arabic,
the min and the ba are sometimes interchanged.
In his origin, the word Becca seems to
be related to the Arabic and Hebrew root
word meaning to cry or to weep. So
the original name of Mecca meant something like
the weeping valley. Allah
says in the Quran.
Indeed, the first house ever founded for humanity,
for the worship of the one true God
was at Becca, the blessed, a guide for
all people.
In
it are clear signs,
and the standing place of Abraham,
whoever enters it should be safe. Pilgrimage to
this house is an obligation by God upon
whoever is able among the people. And whoever
disbelieves, surely Allah is not in need of
any of his creation.
So it was in this weeping valley of
Becca
that Isma'il alaihi salam, as a very young
child,
cried for water while his mother, Aseid Dahaaja
alaihi salam,
ran frantically between 2 hills, Safa and Marwa,
in search of water to give to her
son.
Eventually, a blessed spring was given to her
by Allah
the water of Zamzam, water that flows to
this day.
The name Hajab is pronounced Hagar in English
from the Hebrew Hagar in the Torah.
And it's related to the Arabic word,
meaning flight or migration,
it was Hagar and her son, Ishmael, peace
be upon them, who migrated from Canaan to
the Meccan Valley by order of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
In the Hadith, we are told that Hajar
alaihi salam said, oh, Abraham, are you leaving
us in a barren valley?
And she repeated this many times, and Ibrahim
alaihi salam did not answer her. And then
she said,
did Allah
order you to do this?
Ibrahim alaihi salaam, he said yes. And then
she said, Allah will never neglect us.
Imagine how difficult this was for her. This
was a great, great woman. Look at the
faith, the iman, the taqwa, the tawakul,
the taslim,
the shajaa.
We live in a society now where people
cannot even define what a woman is anymore.
Language and meaning are seriously breaking down.
We don't have that problem. This is a
woman, Assaydah Hajab alaihi sallam. She was a
princess of Egypt who gave her life to
Allah
living in a barren desert.
Allah
made her the matriarch of our deen and
the ancestor of prophet
Muhammad
Now this is a major difference of opinion
we have with biblical tradition with Jews and
Christians.
In Genesis, in the Torah, in the Bible,
we are told that Sarah, the second wife
of Abraham,
banished Hagar and Ishmael into the desert and
that this happened on the day of Isaac's
weaning.
Now in Jewish law, a baby is weaned
for 3 years. So this would have made
Isaac 3 years old when this happened. However,
Genesis also says that Ishmael was 14 years
older than Isaac. So this would have made
Ishmael
17 years old when he was, quote, unquote,
vanished into the desert, the same age as
Joseph according to Genesis Genesis when he was
thrown into a well by his brothers, a
young adult.
But if you read that narrative in Genesis
21 of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert,
Ishmael is clearly described as a baby or
a toddler
who cries
and is picked up by his mother in
her arms.
You see SuqanAllah,
the deception of the editors of the text
is unveiled.
The scribe or scribes or the editors who
put these stories together in the Torah
not only manufactured certain texts, but they manipulated
the chronology of certain events and certain narratives
in order to discredit certain individuals that they
did not like.
In this case, Hajar alaihi salaam and Ismaeel
alaihi salaam.
Ismaeel was a child at the time. That's
the truth. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said
that that Ibrahim alaihi wasallam, he left Hajar
and Ismael
in the desert, and he and and she
was nursing him. She was nursing Isma'il.
So this inconsistency in the chronology
of the biblical narrative proves that it is
impossible
for Hagar and Ishmael to have been banished
on the day of Isaac's meeting.
Isaac, peace be upon him,
had nothing to do with this. Isaac would
not be born for another several years. The
editors inserted Isaac into the story because they
wanted to elevate Isaac over Ishmael
for tribal reasons.
In other words, the real reason why Hajar,
alayhi salam, and Ishmael, alayhi salam are in
the desert is not mentioned by the biblical
editors or it was buried by them. It
was concealed. Allah
says in the Quran,
that biblical scribes, they shifted words out of
their proper context. In other words, they decontextualize
their text to give false impressions.
Allah
says,
Do not mix truth with falsehood
nor conceal the truth knowingly. Allah
says,
Oh, people of the book, indeed, our messenger
has come unto you, exposing much of what
you used to conceal in the bible and
forgiving much. There has come unto you a
light and a clarifying scripture.
The light is the prophet Muhammad, and
the scripture is the Quran.
Almost all modern biblical historians agree with the
Quran
here. The 5 books that Jews and Christians
today attribute to Musa alayhi salam were in
fact assembled about a 1000 years after Moses
by a group of editors who'd stitched together
different versions of laws and narratives
attributed to Musa alaihi salaam and, in effect,
created the overall,
chronology of the Torah as we have it.
This is called the documentary
hypothesis,
and it remains the most widely accepted source
criticism of the Torah in the Western Academy.
But even with this said,
there are certainly kernels of truth here and
there that have survived the passage of time,
that have survived the pens of the editors,
and have in fact maybe maybe have in
fact originated with Musa alayhi salaam. There are
certain things that Allah preserved
in the Torah. Therefore, the Quran presents itself
as both a confirmation,
a
of biblical
tradition, as well as a corrective. The Quran
is.
The Quran is.
In Muslim understanding,
some of the ancient Israelites, the Bani Israel,
who were the Muslim Ummah at that time,
they were the Muslim Ummah. It seems that
some of them considered the Kaaba in ancient
Becca to be one of the outlined tabernacles
or sacred houses of Allah
that they would visit while making pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.
There seems to have been an awareness, at
least in some circles, of Abraham's,
connection to ancient Mecca. These
were probably people living in Yemen who converted
to their religion of Suleyman
sallam.
So I was saying these are probably people
in people living in Yemen who converted to
the religion of Suleyman alaihi sallam for Abrahamic
monotheism
when Biltis,
the queen of Saba, became a believer. So
they would make Hajj from Yemen to Jerusalem,
from Yemen to Bayt al Maqdis, and pass
through Becca on their way.
Psalm 84 in the Tanakh describes the journey
of a group of pilgrims
traveling to Jerusalem
who pass through, quote, the Emek Habakkah,
the Valley of Becca, the Weeping Valley, and
made it into a well. Now we are
told in the Quran that after Ibrahim Alaihi
Salam and Ismail Alaihi Salam
raised up the foundations of the Kaaba, they
supplicated to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Oh, our
lord, accept this from us. You are indeed
the all hearing, the all knowing.
Oh, our lord, make us both fully submit
to you. And from our descendants a nation
that will submit to you. Show us our
rights and rituals and turn to us in
grace. You are truly the acceptor of repentance,
the most merciful.
We are further told in the Quran that
Allah
said to humanity,
and remember when we assigned to Abraham the
sight of the house, saying, do not associate
anything with me in worship and purify my
house For those who circle it, stand in
prayer therein and bow and prostrate themselves,
and announce the pilgrimage to all mankind. They
will come to you on foot and on
every lean mount, and they will come from
every distant pathway so they may obtain the
benefits in store for them and pronounce the
name of god on appointed days over the
sacrificial animals he has provided for them. So
eat from the meat and, from their meat
and feed the desperately poor, and let them
end their untidiness, and let them fulfill their
vows, and let them circumambulate the ancient house,
Suratul Hajj, verses 26 to 29. So we
can see from the Puranic narrative
that the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, with
its rights and rituals has its origin, and
none other than Abraham, peace be upon him.
However, over time, the descendants of Ismael alaihi
salaam
in that region, the Arabs began to fall
away from the pure Abrahamic monotheism,
the Tawhid Ibrahimia.
And, eventually, the Kaaba was filled with hundreds
of idols that the Arabs would pray to
as intercessors
between them and Allah
because they deemed Allah
too majestic to call upon directly.
Now Allah
is majestic. He is Gurjalari walikram,
yet he's also personal, meaning that we can
call upon him directly.
Call upon me and I'll answer you. Now
according to the Quran,
there was one more thing that Ibrahim alaihi
salaam and Ishmael alaihi salaam prayed for at
the Kaaba. They
said
Oh, our lord, raise from among them a
messenger who will recite to them your revelations.
Teach them the book and wisdom and purify
them.
Indeed, you alone are the almighty, the wise.
This prayer of Ibrahim, alayhis salaam, and Ismaeel,
alayhis salaam, was answered by Allah
when he raised the prophet Muhammad
in Mecca as a universal messenger, as Rahmatalil
Alameen.
In fact, the name Isma'il in Hebrew, Ish
Ishmael, means God will hear or answer. And
so his prayer was answered by Allah
The prophet Muhammad
is the prophet of the Abrahamic
restoration. This is very important. He put humanity
back upon the of Ibrahim alaihi salam.
The Quran says,
Indeed, the closest of humanity to Abraham are
those who follow him as are this prophet,
sallallahu alaihi sallam, and the Muslims, those who
believe. And God is the protector of those
who have faith.
The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam was the
greatest monotheist
in the history of the world. The prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasalam recited the to humanity
in the Quran,
God's final revelation.
He taught us the meanings of scripture by
his speech and
actions. And like his ancestor, Ibrahim alaihis salam,
his theological teachings purified humanity
of both explicit and and subtle idolatry.
Now this Muslim tradition of Ibrahim and Ishmael
building the Kaaba in Mecca, this is not
mentioned in the book of of Genesis and
the Torah. It's not mentioned in traditions of
Jews and Christians. And the Jews and Christians
say if these things really happened,
Musa, alayhis salaam, would have mentioned them in
the Torah.
And this is my response to this. And
before I give the response, I want to
make something clear that that we believe as
Muslims
that Islam
that the religion brought by the prophet Muhammad
is din al haqq. It is religion of
truth with a capital t.
We have much in common with other religions.
This is true, but there are also key
differences.
And these differences are actually what make our
deen unique.
It's easy to say that all religions are
essentially the same and that details don't really
matter.
That is doing a disservice to humanity.
May Allah
strengthen our iman with knowledge.
May Allah
make us a means of guidance
and not a a hindrance to guidance.
Just one last thing.
It's it's logic amongst the Hanafis to do
the after the
immediately after the the fog.
Recite the.
For men, it's a signal to be audible.
For women, it's a signal to be to
do it
quiet.
And you'll do this until Oscar Prep on
13th
of the pitch up, which I believe is
also on Tuesday.
Fasting is there's no fasting on it, and
the following in 3 days.
Sludge on the beach on the bottom.